Page:On Shakespeare, or, What You Will, Furness, 1908.djvu/18

16 But his apprenticeship to any dramatist was of short duration. He very soon became an absolute master of his craft and finally the

to quote Ben Jonson’s warm-hearted, enthusiastic eulogy of him.

It is impossible to say how much Shakespeare in the perfection of his powers owed to study or to his native genius. It has been remarked that he gave to Enobarbus in Anthony and Cleopatra, at times, the office of a Greek Chorus. But there is another tragedy, wherein Shakespeare felt, I think, even more keenly than in Anthony and Cleopatra the need of just such aid as a Greek Chorus would supply. What were the origin, the purpose, and the effect of this Chorus, has been, naturally, the subject of profound research. Let us assume that all the results of this research are at our fingers’ ends, and that we know by heart every argument advanced by every scholar, with the final conclusion that a Chorus represents spectators, who respond to every emotion inspired by the actors and not only openly express their approval or condemnation, and reveal the irony of the situation, but are the exponents of public opinion.

It is in the awful tragedy of Lear that Shakespeare felt, so it seems to me, the need of a Greek Chorus; not the Chorus of Euripides or, later, of the Latin Seneca, but the Chorus of Aeschylus and of Sophocles. For six or seven plays Shakespeare did supply a Chorus, sometimes so naming it, sometimes calling it “Prologue,” sometimes “Gower,” or “Time,” or “Rumor,” but, under whatever name, it was not the Greek Chorus. Except in one or two instances where the flight of time or the effect of false rumor, or a change of scene must be explained, Shakespeare’s Chorus tells only that which, with more or less ingenuity, he might have unfolded in the play itself. This is, however, far, very far from fulfilling the purpose of the Greek Chorus; and, as I have said, in Lear there seems to be a genuine need of it. Mark Shakespeare’s device, as I think, for supplying this need. Recall that Cordelia is banished in the first Act and must not reappear before the close of the tragedy; yet not only must she not be forgotten by us, but we must be made constantly aware of her unseen presence and of Lear’s folly in banishing her. Once or twice an allusion